Republican Bayou/Cauci Saturday election results thread (first results @3pm ET?)

[Mr. Morden]

On the Republican side, we have a primary in Louisiana and caucuses in Kansas, Kentucky, and Maine today.

Overview of all results: http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president

Kansas: caucuses run from 11am-3pm ET
http://www.ksgop.org/#!caucus-locations/vopsn
CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/election/primaries/states/ks/Rep
NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/primaries/kansas

Kentucky: caucuses run from 10am to 4pm local time (but since some of the state is in CT, this means the final caucuses end at 5pm ET)
http://rpk.org/caucus/
CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/election/primaries/states/ky/Rep
NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/primaries/kentucky

Maine: caucuses begin at 8pm ET
http://mainegop.com/caucusbasics/
CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/election/primaries/states/me/Rep
NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/primaries/maine

Louisiana: primary polls close at 9pm ET
CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/election/primaries/states/la/Rep
NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/primaries/louisiana

I’m assuming that we’ll only have an exit poll for the primary in Louisiana, in which case the usual public service message applies:

At 5pm, the networks will be given access to the early exit poll numbers.  So some time between about 5:10 and 5:30pm or so, we’ll start getting news reports from them about things like what percentage of the voters are Independents, what the top issues on voters’ minds are, etc.  But they’ll withhold the topline numbers (who is winning the exit poll) until all the polls have closed in a given state.

[Mr. Morden]

Where are those delegate counts coming from? AP says TRUMP 329, Cruz 231, Rubio 110, Kasich 25

I got that picture from the Washington Post.  But it was made the day after Super Tuesday, so some of the results were still being finalized at that point, in all likelihood.  I like it more for the sketches, rather than for the accuracy of the numbers. 

[Mr. Morden]

Rain forecast for parts of Kentucky.  I guess Louisville is supposed to have showers in the late morning / early afternoon.  Unclear that there's going to be any particularly serious weather anywhere that'll dampen turnout:

[Mr. Morden]

Dave Catanese surveys the lay of the land in all four states:

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2016/03/04/saturday-caucuses-present-tougher-test-for-trump

The Kentucky GOP sounds disorganized, since they've never done caucuses before.

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Amusingly, they say that Rand Paul loathes Trump so much he's urging his people to turn out for Not Trump.

[Mr. Morden]

Polls are now open in Louisiana.

[Mr. Morden]

https://twitter.com/joesonka/status/706137884022218756

KY journalist. Good follow for KY caucus info.

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Except that the caucus hadn't started yet at the time he wrote that.  How did they vote for Trump before the caucuses started?

[Mr. Morden]

https://twitter.com/joesonka/status/706137884022218756

KY journalist. Good follow for KY caucus info.

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Except that the caucus hadn't started yet at the time he wrote that.  How did they vote for Trump before the caucuses started?

Uhhhh they started at 10:00am. He tweeted it at 10:22am...

Oh, sorry.  The timestamps on Twitter are being screwy for me for some reason.

[Mr. Morden]

Huge lines in Kentucky for the caucus.  Are we going to see a Nevada-esque fiasco?:

Boone County:



Louisville:



Bowling Green:

[Mr. Morden]

Even though some of the caucuses in Kentucky end at 4pm ET and others at 5pm ET, the Kentucky GOP's website says they won't have any results until 7pm ET:

http://rpk.org/caucus/results/

[Mr. Morden]

Cruz is in Wichita, Kansas at a caucus site there:

[Mr. Morden]

Cruz supporters boo Trump as he's introduced to speak in Kansas:

https://twitter.com/SamanthaJoRoth/status/706164421010141184

[Mr. Morden]

First results from Kentucky:

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/kentucky

[Mr. Morden]

National popular vote so far, across all primaries and caucuses to date:

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/R

Trump 34%
Cruz 29%
Rubio 21%
Kasich 7%
Carson 6%
Bush 2%

Sure is a powerful popular vote mandate for Trump from the Republican electorate, no?

[Mr. Morden]

National popular vote so far, across all primaries and caucuses to date:

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/R

Trump 34%
Cruz 29%
Rubio 21%
Kasich 7%
Carson 6%
Bush 2%

Sure is a powerful popular vote mandate for Trump from the Republican electorate, no?

Does anybody else have a better mandate?

No, none of them do.  This is not an especially popular group of candidates among their own party, by the standards of recent presidential nomination battles:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/republican-voters-kind-of-hate-all-their-choices/

But if you listen to the commentary on CNN, you might think that Trump is this overwhelming consensus candidate within the party or something.  "Oh, look.  He's winning all these states!  The voters love him!"